The PSNet Collection

Disrespectful behavior in healthcare: has it improved? Please take our survey!

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. September 9, 2021;26(18);1-5.

Disrespectful behavior is a persistent contributor to failures in medical care. This article summarizes influences that enable the acceptance and perpetuation of unprofessional behaviors and calls for data to assess its presence and impact in health care environments. The deadline for survey participation is October 29, 2021.

Parenteral nutrition safety.

Mirtallo JM, Ayers P. Pharmacy Practice News. September 7, 2021;48(9):17-20.

Parenteral nutrition (PN) processes contain various steps that are prone to errors resulting in patient harm. This article discusses standardization as a strategy to reduce the potential for missteps and shares resources for process evaluation to improve PN reliability and safety.

Phony diagnoses hide high rates of drugging at nursing homes.

Thomas K, Gebeloff R, Silver-Greenberg J. New York Times. September 11, 2021.

Nursing home medication misuse is a contributor to resident harm. This story highlights system influences such as staffing shortages, reporting failures and normalization of prescribing behaviors that coincide with the misuse of antipsychotic medications and overdiagnosis of schizophrenia.

Can hospitals learn about safety from airlines?

Pasztor A. Wall Street Journal. September 2, 2021.

Aviation continues to serve as an exemplar for healthcare safety efforts. This story highlights work toward the development of a National Patient Safety Board for medicine to establish a neutral centralized body to examine errors and share improvements driven by a robust self-reporting culture similar to that in commercial aviation.

A crisis within a crisis.

Ellis NT, Broaddus A. CNN. August 25, 2021.

Maternal safety is an ongoing challenge worldwide. This news feature examines how the COVID pandemic has revealed disparities and implicit biases that impact the maternal care of black women. The stories shared highlight experiences of mothers with preventable pregnancy-related complications.

Maternal Safety

Ensuring maternal safety is a patient safety priority. This library reflects a curated selection of PSNet content focused on improving maternal safety. Included resources explore strategies with the potential to improve maternal care delivery and outcomes, such as high reliability, care standardization, teamwork, unit-based safety initiatives, and trigger tools.

Pump up the volume: tips for increasing error reporting and decreasing patient harm.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. August 26, 2021;26(17);1-5.

Error reporting is an essential contributor to system safety improvement. This article examines weaknesses in error reporting behaviors, characteristics of organizations and technologies that facilitate underreporting and ineffective report analysis. The piece shares recommendations to enhance adverse event reporting to support learning.

‘He thought what he was doing was good for people.’ Why is it so difficult to prevent unnecessary medical procedures in the U.S. health-care system?

Outcalt C. The Atlantic. August 2021.

Overuse and unnecessary care lead to serious patient harms and a cascade of negative consequences. This story describes the overuse behavior of one surgeon to illustrate influences contributing to the problem.

The pain was unbearable. So why did doctors turn her away?

Szalavitz M. Wired Magazine. August 11, 2021.

The opioid epidemic has contributed to uncertainties for pain management patients that result in harm. This article discusses how an endometriosis patient was unable to get prescriptions to manage her pain due to misinformation generated through screening tools designed to identify opioid misuse and inform prescribing decisions.

Use systems redesign and the law to prevent medical errors and accidents.

Saks MJ, Landsman S. Stat News. August 4, 2021.

This article introduces the systemic task of medical error reduction and discusses the need for a business case, enterprise-wide accountability and legal process change to drive improvement.

'There is a real cost’: as Covid shows, barring bedside visitors from ICU deprives patients of the best care.

Renault M. Stat. July 28, 2021.

Care and safety concerns for patients, families, and clinicians continue to be challenged by COVID-19. This article discusses the unintended consequences of isolation practices during the pandemic as a contributor to patient harm due to resultant family support barriers and loneliness they caused.

Safety committees need to proactively address the risk of accidental cerebral injection of intravenous (IV) drugs.

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. July 29, 2021;26(15);1-5.

Tubing misconnections have been associated with medication administration errors, and yet, design strategies to minimize these mistakes are only beginning to be uniformly implemented. This article shares the story of a contrast media administration error associated with communication and handoff errors. The piece recommends focusing on universal design standards to improve administration along with clinical steps to mitigate the potential for this type of error.

Diagnostic safety event reporting.

ImproveDx. July 2021;8(4).

Adverse event reporting can clarify when mistakes happen and what reduction strategies to apply. This article describes existing efforts to examine diagnostic error through reporting and highlights tactics being employed.

A tragic death shows how ERs fail patients who struggle with addiction.

Pattani A. NPR Shots. July 14, 2021.

Patients with substance abuse disorders face challenges to safe, effective care. This news story highlights how pressures associated with access and cost affect identification of these vulnerable patients and their ability to receive treatment after they arrive at an emergency room.

Geriatric medication reconciliation in the home setting.

Taylor K. American Nurse J. 2021;16(7):14-17.

Medication reconciliation reduces the potential for problems in complicated medication regimens. This article shares strategies for reconciling medications for older patients in the home to ensure their medication use is safe and appropriate.

Federal speech rulings may embolden health care workers to call out safety issues.

Meyer H. Kaiser Health News. July 9, 2021.

Whistleblower protections are a key component to raising awareness of safety issues in work environments. This news story examines how US federal law has opened the door for the media as a platform for employees to highlight conditions that reduce staff and patient safety in health care environments.

Leaving a discontinued FentaNYL infusion attached to the patient leads to a tragic error

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. 2021;26(13);1-2.

High-alert medication misadministration is of great concern due to the increased opportunity for harm associated with mistakes. This case describes how tubing and alarm management errors came together to result in the death of patient sedated with fentanyl.

'An ongoing nightmare': people with obesity face major obstacles when seeking medical care.

Schapiro R. NBC News. June 27, 2021.

System failures cause care delays in a wide range of patient segments. This news story describes barriers to safe, patient-centered care experienced by overweight patients such as bias, ineffective space consideration, and lack of access to screening equipment.

Administration of concentrated potassium chloride for injection during a code: still deadly!

ISMP Medication Safety Alert! Acute care edition. June 3, 2021; 26(11): 1-5.

Concentrated potassium chloride is a high-alert medication for which dosing errors are particularly injurious. This article shares the root causes of IV-push missteps with this medication during a code. Recommendations for improvement shared center on team characteristics and communication.

Machine learning is booming in medicine. It’s also facing a credibility crisis.

Ross C. Stat News. June 2, 2021.

Artificial intelligence and machine learning are often promoted as tools with impressive potential for generating rapid improvements in healthcare decision making. This news story highlights how underlying problems and testing failures limit the trustworthiness of conclusions drawn by the systems.

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